while in his stories he tries to decipher the mysteries of the nature of the characters he narrates to have known, i wonder about him. at some point i'm convinced that he detested women in a way, that he was contemptuous of them but then he surprises me toward the end of the tale by springing on me, this woman who is a contradiction to the most ubiquitous of womanly faults. and is yet, so whole a woman. was it that he never found the ideal that he was searching in woman? and therefore he was gay...?